I have had a penchant for drawing very charismatic people towards me. Some have been leaders of their communities and some have been famous people. Some have simply been magnificently larger than life.
One of my roles has been like that of the secret service. I have been the beholder and protector of privacy. Outsiders would ask me questions about these people and forget about it. I have been a faithful guardian.
And I’ve come to see many things along the way. The lion is considered to be the King of the Animal world. Female Mountain lions are extremely protective over their mountain lion kittens and have been known to fight off large mammals, including grizzly bears, with success. Its lifestyle is solitary and it has powerful forearms, powerful paws and a muscular jaw.
I am like this Lion. Extremely protective when that is what is called for.
It is the lion’s nature to go off on its own. And I know how to roam the mountaintop alone with adeptness and skill.
*
Lion power: Vitality.
We have all fantasized about being friends with famous or larger-than-life people. Imagined that if they only really knew us, they would want to be our closest and dearest friend.
I don’t know what that is for others, but what has been real for me is something important. I know it is sheer and utter projection, because I have no life experience with most of these people, but...
There is a reflection of a humor, a life-force and an energetic juice that when I see it “over there,” reflected outside of myself, I want very much to have it closer to me. I also know that I can only see it because I possess it inside of me. And so, I am not just responding to projection, but a great reflection of myself which I wish to share and express, and express more and more of by someone who is expressing this vibrancy so clearly and beautifully and perhaps vibrating in the very resonant magnificence which I know I wish to tend to but perhaps have not achieved as fully.
I have achieved this expression quite spectacularly. But I have allowed life to get in the way and pull me off course and practically pull me from remembering this expression of myself until I hear myself laugh or gesture in a certain way and find myself all over again. What it says to me is that I am not in the full expression of my life. I have veered off course.
Signal: steer the train back on track.
*
I am experiencing a distinct arc at the moment of making decisions and experiencing real plateaus. Some things are being asked of me and some things are simply not moving at all.
I am asking myself very big questions on all fronts. What do I want? Who am I? Who am I becoming? Who do I want to become? What have I come here to do? What do I need? What can I give? What is my highest purpose? Who is there left to forgive?
And right now it is also lovely to just watch the tennis.
That’s not a joke, actually.
I saw a photograph and it was a life which did not belong to me. I asked my friend if there was a television at the function. And I immediately felt a deep ripple of feelings inside.
Indignance possessed my entire being.
The thought which came to me was this: “Well, then, I just wouldn’t go to that function! That would be non-negotiable. It’s the U.S. OPEN!”
Then another ripple.
“That’s so rigid. Look how isolated you keep yourself...” It went on for a while. From how those who seek me out in friendship are not so available to how I actually isolate.
It was a tricky moment. If something that I love (tennis) brings me more deeply into who I am, and helps to bring me back to myself, brings me home again, I may not be willing to give it up. Except under emergency circumstances. Emergency circumstances trump everything as far as I am concerned.
It may not actually be petulant or stubborn. It may be wise.
This lioness doesn’t mind being alone on holidays if the matches are on. Even if she knows how to rabble-rouse with the best of ‘em!
So, maybe one of the reasons charismatic people are drawn to me is because of my own inherent charisma. But maybe we always need to take leave of one another and go to our own sides of the court more often than not because the flip side of having charisma is a longing for solitude and quiet.
A longing which keeps me contentedly roaming the mountaintop.
In full expression of joy and tears when my players win or lose. Protecting. Loving. Persevering. And truthfully, having a ball!
9.2.12
Jill Bacharach
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